Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a shame. It is unacceptable. What about elderly residents and those with illnesses or disabilities? Some people do not know how to access the internet or for one reason or another cannot travel long distances to these towns to carry out such basic day-to-day functions. Some people have no cars and rely on public transport. I can tell you that there is no public transport in a lot of these towns. There are no taxi services. There are no bus services.

The government are out of touch with the needs of the regional communities. This decision by an uncaring Labor government must be overturned and overturned soon. It is like everything else they do. They hide behind the curtains and leave the delivery of bad news to the store owners and business owners who they have just sacked. Let me quote from the notice sent out to the store owners who for years have provided this service to their communities and have been sacked by Medicare Australia. The letter to those people, who had been faithful over all those years, said:

It is your responsibility to notify all customers who intend to use the Medicare Australia access point facility that it will no longer be available.

Let us get this straight: the federal government sack the store owners and then require them to do the government's dirty work by delivering the bad news to the people of these smaller towns. We all know this is a 'good news only' government. All they want to speak about is the good news, all the good things.

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